The action is part of a three-day strike aimed at forcing the government to adopt structural reforms.
The unions claimed that 10,000 people marched in Noumea on the first of three days of action, said RNZI’s Walter Zweifel.
The protest against what workers consider to be excessive prices of basic goods will move to the northern province today and then onto the Loyalty Islands.
Theprotest closed many businesses and some schools in the Noumea area, and also prompted flight cancellations, including the Auckland to Noumea service, said Zweifel.
Political leaders, however, are all in France this week for talks with the French prime minister to find a way out of the territory’s political crisis, following four government collapses this year.
